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Richard Anderson Ivie (1826-1892)
}} Biography Richard Anderson Ivie was a private in Company A of the Mormon Battalion, alongside several of his cousins from the Sanders and Allred families. Early Life Richard is a very interesting character. He was born in Shelbyville, Bedford, Tennessee on either the 10th or the 18th of February of 1825. (We have different records that show each of these two different dates; at least we know he was born in February of 1825.) Richard was the oldest son of James Russell Ivie and Eliza McKee Faucett. There was a large clan of the Ivies who lived in and around the Tennessee , Georgia, and Missouri area. Our branch of the family had a plantation and about 75 slaves. All the stories we have of the family indicate that several of them liked adventures, and they were often involved in new land opening up and that type of thing. Conversion to Mormonism In 1832, Richard’s parents were converted to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, so they moved around with the Saints at that time to Kirtland and Nauvoo and knew the Prophet Joseph Smith and other prominent church leaders. They also had personal experiences with Parley P. Pratt, which are written of in PPP’s autobiography (pp. 234-236). On June 14, 1846 Richard and his family were at Council Bluffs, Iowa with a group led by Brigham Young, on the trek to Salt Lake Valley. On June 16, 1846, Richard married a young woman named Elizabeth Dobson, who was also from Ohio. She was well-educated and came from a wealthy family, and joined the Church against their wishes. When she married Richard they disowned her. The first home for these newlyweds was in a covered wagon, as they were preparing to come West. Mormon Battalion About this time the United States was involved in a War with Mexico, and in July, just a few weeks after their marriage, the United States Army came and asked the Saints to provide 400 to 500 men to serve in a Battalion and march into California to take possession of that territory. Richard was called to serve with this group, and his name is on the rosters of the Mormon Battalion. However, the story that has come down through the family is that a family council was held, and because Richard had just gotten married, his father (James Russell Ivie) went in his place. He served under his son’s name, and left with the Battalion on July 16, 1846. Migration to Utah Richard and Elizabeth came across the plains in 1848. In Utah their first child, a daughter, was born in Salt Lake City on February 28, 1849. They later moved down to Provo to help settle that area, and lived in the old Provo Fort where their second child, James Thomas Ivie, was born on December 27, 1850. James was the second white child born in the Provo Valley, the first to be born in the fort, and he is the one we are descended from. In 1864 the family moved farther south to Round Valley (Scipio) to help settle that area. In all, Richard and Elizabeth had eight children. Marriage in Idaho Richard later became a polygamist, and had at least three wives. He had several children to whom he gave Book of Mormon names, and one was called Parley P. Pratt Ivie. The third wife was Hannah, and in about 1884 Richard and Hannah went to the area of Camas Prairie, Idaho. This is up in the mountains above Shoshone, near Fairfield. There were lots of gold and silver mines, the railroad was being built from Ogden to Boise, and new land was being opened up for cattle ranching and farming. He could have gone for any of these reasons, plus the fact that in Utah in the 1880’s life was dangerous for polygamist husbands. Also in Idaho at the time, there was Indian fighting, and life could be exciting! Camas Prairie Richard and Hannah lived somewhere out on the Camas Prairie. His burial records say “Camas Prairie, Soldier, Idaho”. A few years ago, I (Debra Plane) went up to the area to do some research on this family. I went to five cemeteries up in the area and Richard’s grave is not in any of them. There are lots of Ivie people who live up there, and I was able to talk with a couple of them. One of them told me that his father used to tell him stories of his cousin who used to run whisky out to the miners. This man thought his dad was talking about Richard. If that is the case, then this is what happened: one fall Richard got sick when he was out with his friends to take the whisky to the mines. He probably had pneumonia, and he died out there. The snow was several feet deep (22 November 1892) and the ground was frozen, so they buried him the best they could. That probably means that he was just buried in the snow because they couldn’t get to the ground, and there was no grave marker. Hannah and some of Richard’s other children are buried in various places in that area, including over in Mackay, Idaho, where she went after he died.